Some 12,000 of 30,000 public catering facilities, which had been working in Ukraine before the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis caused by it, have been liquidated as business entities, member of the Servant of the People faction Mykyta Poturayev, who is also the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, said.
“According to the data on HoReCa, we had 30,000 public catering facilities in Ukraine before the quarantine, including small cafes and bars to large restaurants. Some 12,000 of 30,000 have been liquidated. I mean they didn’t close down for the time of the quarantine, but were liquidated as enterprises,” he said in an exclusive interview to Interfax-Ukraine.
The MP said that some 40% businesses in the sphere may close down, in particular due to the fact that the Verkhovna Rada failed to adopt amendments to the national budget at the first attempt.
“Probably, this may be caused by the fact that we failed to adopt the budget at the first attempt, although exactly the package related to the budget contained necessary legal grounds for the launch of the force majeure procedure. So, people could close down their businesses because they were unable to fulfill their leasing obligations,” Poturayev said.
According to him, a part of the liquidated enterprises could revive their activities after the quarantine.
“Probably, some of these 12,000 liquidated enterprises will come back [to the market], but we don’t know how many of them will and this is a problem,” the MP said.
